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armies and encourage one another to feats of valour with it. Also they accompany their dead to the grave, making such mourneful sounds as almost to force the bystander to weep."
The original pipes probably had a single drone of some description and by the 16th century development two. As described in “De Rebus in Hibernia Getis” there were two drones as well as the blowpipe and chanter (cf O’Neill, Musicians and Minstrels). There are numerous mentions of this pipe in the 15th century and there must have been much cross fertilisation of ideas between Scottish and Irish pipers for the McCrimmonds to travel between the two. Flood has suggested that there is a reference to Irish pipes in Shakespeares time but we will deal with that suggestion in the next section.
Slowly but surely the pipes began to decline in use and there was quite a downturn in their use after the Williamite wars of the 1680’s and 90’s. The playing of Irish war pipes was supressed largely due to their rousing influence on the Irish. By the mid 18th century they were little in evidence. The last recorded use of the Piob Mhor is at the Battle of Fontenoy where an Irish brigade fought with the French against the English on May 11th 1745. There are no extant remains of these pipes anywhere. There used to be an old set of pipes in the Musee De Cluny in Paris which have subsequently disappeared.
The decline of the large pipes was also due no doubt to the influence of dance music which began to become very popular. There is a good account of the rise in popularity in the Breathnach book “Folk Music and Dances of Ireland”:
“Arthur Young in his account of his travels in Ireland … 1776-1779 remarked that dancing was so universal through the country from cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler, and were paid by the cottiers for teaching their children dancing.”
The pipes mentioned above were not the Piob Mhor but quite another sort altogether. As western tonality and music requiring notes outside one or two confined scales developed in Ireland, so too did the need to change the instrument. The new one was bellows-blown with two to three drones and a similar number of regulators. The chanter had a range of over two octaves. This was the Union Irish or Uilleann pipes.
The Irish, Union, Organ or Uilleann Pipes
As the above title suggests there are many names for the newer form of pipes played in Ireland. The pipes were known as union pipes in a tutor published by O’Farrell c1800 which is the earliest known tutor for the instrument. Some suggest that the name union comes from the Act of Union (1800) but this is also not the case as it appears in a poem of 1796 where the playing of a musician is recorded thus:
“For he can play the union pipes and nobly squeeze his bags.” 22 Chanter
Frontispiece from O’farrell’s National Irish Music for the Union Pipes
Another possibility is that “union” is a variation of “unison”. The tenor regulator would sound in unison with the chanter. At this stage I can reintroduce Shakespeare namely the character of Shylock who talks of a “woolen” pipe in Act iv, Scene 1 of the Merchant of Venice. Flood did suggest that this was a corruption of Uilleann. The word uill comes from the Irish word for elbow. It would be difficult as Breathnach suggests to anglicise it into union in 18th century Ireland. The term uilleann has caught on and is used today. “Woolen” as previously mentioned more than likely refers to the bag being an animal (sheep or goat) skin turned with fleece outermost. It may even be a corruption of wooden pipe the material of the chanter.
The earliest form was, I suggest the new or pastoral pipes which as in the modern instrument had a key note of D (old pitch). The octave obtained by squeezing the bag harder. Geoghegans tutor as mentioned before showed largely Scottish technique. These sets had usually two drones set one octave apart and a regulator. The idea for that probably deriving from the Sordinella.
In the early 18th two sometimes three regulators were added giving the possibility of chordal work. The drones were extended to three in number and dropped into the modern tuning of an octave above, below and unison with the chanter. Double chanter sets appeared, as did keyed chanters, in the early part of the last century and were used in non traditional music. Chanters were
Chanter 23
made in pitches from low a up as high as e^b. A drone switch was also added about then. It enabled the drones to be turned on and off at the players discretion.
O’Farrell published the first tutor for what was then known as the union pipes. He gave its range as d’-d’’’ with a fully chromatic scale. The tutor was written by a noted performer who appeared often on the London stage. He was noted for using the pipes as accompaniment to songs providing a melody on the chanter and harmonies with the regulators.
The Moloney brothers of Knockerra near Kilrush are credited with providing the pipes with the perculiar trombone-slide on the bass drone to aid with tuning in the mid-late 1800’s. But certainly the most sought after makers were the Kennas, Maurice Coyne, Michael and John Egan, and the Rowsome family. Tim Kenna was an excellent maker and made top quality sets from 1768 up until about 1794. The younger Kenna worked in the first part of the 19th century was supposed to be more secretive about the way he worked though he was a great maker. Coynes pipes are much sought after today as they provide a mellow, quiet, pure tone and are beautifully made. John Egan is supposed to have been a Dublin pipe maker but Michael Egan is considered one of the best makers of all. He was in business in the early nineteenth century making good sets from 1830-1860 and was one of the first to make in America.
The Rowsome family were and still are a noted family of Irish pipers and makers going back many generations. Pipes made by William Rowsome and later Leo Rowsome are much sought after today by the top players. The family tradition carries on in Kevin Rowsome who is a maker and player himself.
The people who had the greatest effect on pipe making undoubtedly were the Taylor Brothers - they were born in the 1830’s in Drogheda and they were sons of a player-maker. The decline of the pipes after the great famine in Ireland in the 19th century forced the Taylors to America and Philadelphia in particular. In c1873 they started manufacturing and repairing pipes but they realised that the pipes they had were too quiet for the concert and music halls which were an important venue for a piper. So the pipes were redesigned and made more compact. The bore was widened, the holes enlarged and the end result was a d-pitched instrument which was also easier for others to play along with making it a much more popular instrument and winning many new players. These sets were in demand!
The pipes manufactured in this way were known as concert sets because they could now play in concert halls without being lost. The other narrow bore sets became known as flat sets even if they were in concert pitch (a=440). Present developments have included having four, sometimes up to six regulators! Having cylindrical regulators, drones tuned to different intervals and drones capable of playing in different pitches by venting a hole further up the drone via a sliding ring as in Northumbrian pipes.
24 Chanter
The style of playing has also evolved in different ways. Seamus Ennis has suggested three main styles. Tight or stacatto playing with many triplets and ornaments, the notes separated by a stopping of the chanter, similar to Northumbrian piping. Legato or smooth open playing is just the reverse and said to be more fluid. The third is called drawing room style, a cross between the two.
The biggest bone of contention in piping is probably the use of the regulators. It seems that it is every pipers ambition to have a set of regulators but many players do not, according to the late Seamus Ennis, play them at all well:
“They are an abomination if used as monsterous percussion.”
The great man also suggested that it took seven years listening, seven years practising/learning and seven years playing before you became a player! (Maybe a nod in the direction of piping colleges!)
With the improvement in amplification techniques there is not such a need for D chanters and many players such as Robbie Hannon use old flat sets to play on in concerts. Many think that the sound is better on the flat sets now. Today there is a great revival both in pipe-playing and making with probably over 30 makers in western Europe alone. The pipes are back on an upswing helped greatly by Brendan Breathnach and ‘Na Piobari Uilleannn’ which was formed in 1968 with the aims of promoting the playing, collecting and preserving the music, and promoting their manufacture and servicing. Pipes are played by lords, ladies, students, lawyers, buskers and people from all walks of life. Long may it continue!
Conclusion
The pipes as we know them in the form of Uilleann pipes via a convoluted path could be a distant cousin of the old Piob Mhor of Ireland.
Scotland shared the same piping traditions up until the 17th century. The Jacobite and Williamite wars caused makers to experiment giving rise to bellows blown smaller pipes. The pastoral pipes being one of those. Although not so popular in Scotland (few makers names) it took off in Ireland with the new 17th century craze for jigs, reels, hornpipes and dance music of other forms. These pipes were developed and became the union pipes, were adjusted and refined to become the Uilleann pipes we know now.
Materials such as box and elder are still being used along with brass and silver but these days makers are experimenting with ebony, blackwood, cocobolo, lignum vitae as well as using nickle silver, and replacing ivory with plastic or horn. There are new developments all the time including a stop mechanism for the chanter and a spring mounted popping-pad which fits under the chanter.
Chanter 25
The time for making and playing has never been better with many good modern players such as Liam O’Flinn, Paddy Keenan, Robbie Hannon, Sean og Potts, Ronan Brown, Declan Masterson, Billy Brown, John Murphy, to name but a few. Credit must be given to two who brought piping to a more commercial music world: Finbar Furry and Dave Spillane.
Bibliography
Armstrong,-Davidson MH, Galpin Society Journal, A note on the History of the Northumbrian Smallipes, 1985
Bagpipe Society Newsletter, Summer, 1988.
Baines A, Bagpipes, 1960
Breathnach B, Folk Music and Dances of Ireland, 1981
Cannon R, The Highland Bagpipe and Its Music, 1988
Carson, Irish Traditional Music, 1986
Charlton G, The Northumbrian Bagpipes, Archaeologica Aelianna, 4th series
Chaucer G, Complete Works (Prologue to Canterbury Tales) 1932
Clarke ET, The New Approach to Uilleann Piping, 1988
Cocks WA, The Northumbrian Bagpipes; Their Development and Makers 1933
Cleary W, The Bagpipe, 1982
Collinson F, The Bagpipe, Fiddle and Harp, 1983
Collinson F, The Bagpipe - The History of a Musical Instrument, 1975
Dineen Rev. P, Irish-English Dictionary
Flood G The Story of the Bagpipe, 1911
Galelei V, Dialogo Delia Musica Antica E Moderna, 1581
Galpin Society Journals 1985-89
Garvin W, The Irish Bagpipes, Construction and Maintainance
Geoghegan J, Compleat Tutor for Pastoral or New Bagpipe, London, 1771
Groves Dictionary of Music, 1984
Hunter, Peter, Anecdotes on Pipes (unpub)
Leppert, Richard D, Acardia at Versailles, 1978
La Rouse Encyclopadea, 1971
Mersenne M, Paris, Harmonie Universalle, 1636
Munro RW, Highland Clans and Tartans, 1977
Muskett, Mr D, The Muskette & Hurdy-Gurdy, 1984
O’Neill F, Irish Musicians & Minstrels, 1987 reprint
Sachs C, The History of Musical Instruments, 1940
Sachs C, Handbuch der Musikinstrumenten-Kunde, 1930
Schlesinger K, Boumas Boekhuls nu Gronigenito, The Greek Aulos, 1934
Shakespeare W, Complete Works, The Merchant of Venice
Stacy & Wishart, Bagpipes & Hurdy Gurdies, 1984
Sky, Patrick, A Manual for the Irish Uilleann Pipes, 1980
Weber W Die Agyptisch Griechischen Terracotten, 1921
Winternitz Musical Instruments and their Symbolism in Western Art, 1970
Chanter 27
- Swedish Bagpipe (Säckpipa or Blasböck)
- French Musette
- Montguscon Bagpipe, French
- Bassoon-shaped Bass Dulcian (Dulcian-trombone) for Bass, German
Note: This page features an image of various traditional bagpipes and a bassoon-shaped dulcian. The instruments are numbered and their names are listed accordingly.
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